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Oil Field Engines & Related EquipmentOFES members otherwise known as "Oafs". If you like "BIG OLD GREASY RUSTY OIL FIELD ENGINES, you're in the right place. Founded by Russell Farmer.

Perhaps we should have a safety moment about the hazards of taking up residence in the water jacket of an engine with an exhaust leak? This is not staged, I found him exactly like this when I took the head off

I hesitated to show the details of this starter because it is DANGEROUS.

I don't mean to be critical and I understand the need to try to start these engines when we have no helpers but as you said these starters are dangerous. How about rigging up something for compressed air? Even a smaller portable air compressor would work and they do start nicely on air once you learn how to admit the air manually. And of course start easier when the head gasket is fixed. Nice engine!

Ray, Now I see why you missed Catoosa. You were having to much fun working on that Simplex. That is going to make a very nice display. There was only one Reid at Catoosa and that was about it for oilfield engines.

I was wondering if maybe a centrifugal clutch on the Honda engine would help? You could start the engine and let it idle, fully engage the tire to the flywheel, then open the throttle to the engine and let the clutch do the work. It would be easier if you had a remote throttle on the handle, and you could give it more throttle as the engine revs up.

What would happen if you drove the flywheel off the cylinder side? You would have to lift up on the lever to engage the wheel. But the wheel could not be sucked up into the flywheel because it would be trying to push it away. You would have to fasten the device down so it would not be pushed away. Might have to reverse the direction of the drive wheel for it to work.

I think you are right Tom. I designed the present version so I could drive it either way. The problem with that approach at the time I got started was that a wheel would have to be removed from the engine cart to get the starter under the flywheel. It was much easier to remove the pin and take off the front wheels than to remove a single wheel on the fixed axle. I will probably try that on the next version but hopefully now that I have the sweet spot found I can just bump start this engine from now on.

I don't have a lot of experience with air start and I don't know of any examples down here that I could look at. I understand the principles but it would seem like it would be possible to screw up the sequence pretty easily. I am a natural born practitioner of Murphy's Laws, so I can guarantee I could manage to screw up the sequence somehow. I have seen a couple of starter systems that work off a drive wheel so I went with that technique. Plus I have six more big engines to rebuild after this one including four two stroke engines, so I am trying to make my starter as universal as I can. I have heard about problems with air starters on two strokes like Kevin mentioned and did not want to try to reinvent the wheel on that one.
Throb, the way this one was supposed to work was that as the drive wheel was pulled up the belts were supposed to get tighter and they were supposed to be the clutch. In actual use I could not adjust the belts to where this was accomplished. I used to use a centrifugal clutch in my racing Kart when I was younger and I fought clutch problems more than anything else with my racing setup. They will work great if set up properly but I have shied away from them since my racing experiences. I just didn't want to have to work so hard trying to figure out how to make them work right.
Dwayne, that is too bad about the attendance of oilfield engines at Catoosa. I will do my best to make it next year with one. I really wanted to be there this year but it just did not work out.

I actually threw that compressed air in there as an additional safety concern. I knew you or my brother or my son or someone would comment. Don't try starting a hot tube or hot bulb engine with air. Too many things can go wrong. Our 125 delaverne is a hot head engine that was set up for air start but we've never used it. Back when we got the engine John Wilcox told dad not to start it on air because he had found too many engines with their heads blown off or cylinders blown apart from things that go wrong. We have a 40hp delavergne we start on air but that one has an automatic timing mechanism to let the air in at the appropriate time and shut it off at the appropriate time. Now on engines with coil or mag or something I think air is the way to go. Sure saves on the arm muscles.